60
Concord, Mass.
1898.
April 16
  Forenoon cloudy with occasional light showers. Clearing
in the afternoon with W. wind. At sunset the sky
was cloudless and the light remarkably clear & strong.
  A great bird day, everything in full song from
early until late. Just after breakfast I heard a
Partridge drumming in the old place on the stone
wall at the E. end of Ball's Hill. Gilbert heard
another later in near Concord. 
  A little before noon a [female] Green-winged Teal
passed the cabin flying downriver. She passed
within forty yards of me & I made a certain
identification. A few minutes later as we were
at dinner we heard the honking of Geese & rushing
out saw a flock of twenty of the noble birds
flying north. They passed over the E. end of Ball's
Hill at a height of less than 100 yards.
  A solitary male Yellow-rump appeared near
the cabin in the forenoon & spent the remainder
of the day singing at intervals.
  Our cabin Phoebee appeared this morning with
a mate and sang freely through the day. 
   The evening was a rarely beautiful one, dead
calm with a strong amber light on the oppose [sic] [opposite]
shores of the river. Two Bitterns were pumping 
on the meadows sometimes together but usually
one beginning just after the other had ceased.
A Snipe also drummed a few times.
  A Grass Finch was singing all day long in
the old field near the pine plantation.